14 DAY TRIAL // In its latest report, Distimo says that June 2011 saw the average selling price of games decline by 28% over the last year, while the revenue generated by the most successful freemium games increased ten times over.
One of the main reasons behind the popularity and monetization success of in-app purchases was the presence of virtual currencies within games.
35% of the 300 most popular free games in June use virtual currencies to monetize in the App Store, one way or another.
Of the 300 most popular paid apps, a third of the downloads is generated by games. The remainder is generated by applications other than games.
Distimo also found that the total revenue generated by top grossing games is up by 79% year-on-year, and that only a small number of publishers dominate total game downloads.
To put things into perspective, Distimo notes that only ten publishers account for more than half of all downloads among the 300 most popular paid games.
Distimo, whose purpose is to solve the challenges created by a widely fragmented app store marketplace, said:
“Notwithstanding the popularity of games, the growth rate of the number of applications other than games is higher than the growth rate of the number of games in most stores.”
“The number of games has increased faster than other apps only in the Apple App Store for iPhone, the Apple App Store for iPad and GetJar, but the growth rate for games in other stores is lower than for other applications,” the metrics company concluded.
Launched shortly after the introduction of the first app store (Apple’s), Distimo quickly noticed that app stores are “the way forward for content distribution.”
The firm strongly believes that this business model offers a huge opportunity for developers to get their content out, while also improving content discovery for the people who download their apps.